Page 21 of The Shadowbound and the False God

This wasn’t right—Lyre had never said those words. He hadn’t fought, hadn’t cried, though he’d wanted to. He hadn’t even looked back to wave goodbye to his parents as he’d ridden off in Werryn’s saddle.

But in this version, he shook his head adamantly. “I don’t want to go,” he said again.

The knife glinted and, before Lyre could comprehend the motion, his father lay still on the floor. Blood flowed thick and fast from the open wound bisecting his neck. His mother fell next, eyes dull and unseeing. Yet somehow, they still looked exceptionally proud.

You doubted me,a voice crooned in Lyre’s mind. It was the Low One’s voice, but different. Raw. As though the distance between Elowas and Wyldraíocht had acted as a filter before, softening and smoothing the edges.

He’d waited so long—so, so long—to hear that voice for himself. He was skeptical of Werryn when the former High Prelate claimed the Low One spoke to him regularly. Lyre had suspected his god had communed with Kael, but he never thought that the first time hearing His voice for himself would be so damning.

“Never,” Lyre swore. “I only ever doubted myself. I doubted that I was worthy of serving you.”

The voice chuckled, a low rumbling vibration that echoed in Lyre’s skull.You cannot beguile me so easily as you do others, Lyre Lorsan. I know you. I see you.

“I was young,” he tried, pleading now as his parents continued to bleed out before him, though their forms were beginning to fade away. “I was afraid. If I’d known then what I came to know, what I know now, I wouldn’t have been. I never would have questioned your will.”

The Low One hummed, the sound deliciously drawn out. It dragged a shudder down Lyre’s spine that ticked over each vertebra slow as dripping honey.You think you know of my will? You do not. I am not your god.

Lyre faltered, his expression shifting from one of awe to one of confusion. It was the first time in a long time—maybe ever—that he’d worn such an expression on his face. It felt terribly out of place there.

He shot to his feet, shaking off the last of that warped memory as he ran straight through his parents’ bodies, straight through the fading wall of his childhood home, and back into the forest. His robe snagged on a branch as he went, and he let the tree take it from him. He didn’t need it. What he needed was to get out. To get back.

He had to reach the doorway before it closed.

The centaurs had fallen off one by one as Raif moved swiftly and quietly through the trees. He’d struck at least two with his arrows, his shot sure and his aim true as ever. He’d always been good with a bow, though he was far better with a sword. Close-in combat was where Raif truly shone as a warrior. Had there been fewer hunters, he would have taken great pleasure in cutting them all down. As it was, there were too many to risk his companions’ lives for his own enjoyment.

There was something off in this part of the forest, something more than the aberrant Fae they’d encountered before. It was in the air, thick and oppressive. It pressed in on him from all sides as he ran; his legs had to work twice as hard to drive him forward against the weight of it. Eventually, the heaviness forced him to slow to a walk. Raif’s breaths were labored, the same weight dragging down his legs now pressing on his chest. He felt as though his lungs were being crushed under it, unable to fully expand. His vision swam as he forced himself forward. Forced himself to keep gasping for air. He was moving too slow,allowing himself to be too vulnerable to those twisted beings he thought were surely watching him now, waiting for him to stumble and fall.

Brandishing his sword, Raif gritted his teeth and fought back steadily against that ceaseless pressure. One step after another, he inched forward until his inability to take in a full breath had his head spinning. Enough that when he lifted his eyes to look up from the path, he thought he must have lost his mind when he saw before him a clearing.

The Cut.

Raif stopped moving, stopped breathing entirely. He blinked hard, but the mirage remained. Sheathing his sword, Raif closed his eyes. Unclenched his jaw. Focused all of his strength and energy on taking one deep, deliberate, steadying breath. If he could drag enough air into his lungs, it would clear the illusion from his mind. A level head was his best defense against the barrage of corrupted magic assaulting him.

Elowas,he repeated to himself.This is Elowas; this isn’t real.

Despite his efforts, when Raif opened his eyes again, he was still standing at the edge of The Cut. Now, it was dimly lit by flickering candles—and he was no longer there alone.

He knew this scene, knew exactly what was unfolding before him. Around him. He’d carried this memory with him for a very, very long time. He’d never forget the configuration of those candles.

He had the same pit in his stomach as he’d felt that day when he saw the cold, determined look in Kael’s eyes as the pair had ridden back to the Undercastle from a particularly brutal clash on the Veladryn front. They’d managed to secure the dominion, just, but their victory came at a steep price. Werryn had berated Kael’s inability to extend his shadows far enough into the Seelie unit to do any real damage. The king hadn’t been able to produce much more than a few fine, misty ribbons until their forces hadcome close enough that his magic tore through both the Seelie army and his own.

One of those black tendrils had bitten into Raif’s thigh, deep enough that the memory of the pain made him limp now as he approached where Kael—the ghost of Kael, the memory of Kael—knelt in the center of The Cut. He’d lit candles in a configuration Raif had never seen before that night, though the Guard Captain rarely attended the rituals there. They were garish and over-the-top, he would claim when asked, but he would never admit the truth out loud: those rituals frightened him. The Low One was not a kind god, but one of wrath and vengeance. The perfect idol for the Unseelie Court, but not one that Raif cared to be any nearer to than he felt when muttering his own prayers in private before he slept.

Kael was facing him, just as he had been that night, but he didn’t see his friend lurking in the shadows of the trees. Watching. His head was lowered, hair a shining silver curtain hiding his face. The invocation he murmured was too low to hear despite the sounds of the forest having silenced around them.

And then, the cool glint of metal as Kael raised his dagger. Raif was as powerless to stop him in this manifestation as he had been that night as Kael drove the weapon into the crease of his elbow and slowly, slowly dragged it down towards his wrist. The blade was sunken into his forearm so deep that its tip must have been scraping bone, but the Unseelie King didn’t falter, didn’t flinch. Blood poured from the wound and was absorbed just as quickly into the thirsty soil below.

Sangelas—blood magic. A blood rite. Kael was committing an unspeakable, unthinkable act.

Shadows began to mix with the blood, seeping from Kael’s arm that he now held outstretched. Then, it was as if Kael’s entire body was exploding with his own magic. Darkness engulfed him.The Cut. The forest. So thick Raif could scarcely see his king as he tried to run towards him.

But this was wrong. This was different.

Those centuries ago, Raif had plunged headlong into that darkness to find Kael writhing on the ground as his magic tore him apart from the inside, too strong for his body to contain. His flesh blistered and stretched and tore in patterns that cruelly mimicked the tendrils of shadow that surged from him.

It wasn’t until Raif had snuffed out each candle, kicked dirt over the runes Kael had scratched into the forest floor, and hastily packed the wound in the king’s arm with strips of his own tunic to staunch the bleeding that the darkness ebbed at last. Kael’s shadows withdrew into his skin, leaving him unconscious and gravely wounded. But alive. Breathing.

This time, Raif’s feet were stuck fast in place. The darkness that surrounded him had thickened where it lay on the ground, dense and heavy as mud all the way up to his waist. He couldn’t move. When he made to call out to Kael, the same muddy blackness filled his mouth. His throat. His lungs. But his eyes were left unobstructed, and he was forced to watch as the king succumbed to his magic. It shredded through him, shattering bones and strangling organs and ripping his flesh to bloody, ragged ribbons. And the earth took it all, those runes filling with gore and the soil drinking and drinking endlessly.

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